Anyone who thinks you have to choose obviously has no idea what was going on in the back of the Mystery Machine. Jeepers, free love, maaan. Arms, legs and paws everywhere. Hey, those were crazy days. And Scooby Snacks are a hell of a thing, man. A hell of a thing.

Daphne, hands down. I’ve always had a mad crush on Sarah Michelle Gellar, so by virtue of her playing Daphne in the movies, animated Daphne wins by association (I would have picked her anyway, but still…).

How did the “Scooby-Doo” show ever become so popular? When it premiered, I was the target audience, and I have to say I never saw an episode that wasn’t a bitter disappointment. I kept watching because I’m a “the cartoon’s not yet half over” kind of guy. I kept hoping “maybe this time the really cool monster will be real.” But no.

Never happened.

It’s a good thing for Hanna-Barbera they also made Atom Ant, The Herculoids, Secret Squirrel and Frankenstein Jr., because otherwise I would so demand a refund on my childhood.

Oh, yeah: Velma. And Ginger. And Bailey over Jennifer. Now there’s a “why not both?”

I can only go by the animated series, having never seen the movies, so I’ve gotta voice descent and go with Daphne. I’ve done the geek love thing most of my life, I’d like to see what this trophy wife thing is like. Probably won’t last more than three months, but what the heck.

The Velma from the movies (and I take exception to the idea that the first one was terrible; it’s surprisingly funny, as it takes the same approach that the first Brady Bunch movie did with its characters) is played by Linda Cardellini, incidentally (of Freaks and Geeks fame, and more recently ER, although I haven’t met anyone who’s actually watched ER in the last eight years).

Velma and Daphne are two of the worst female characters ever created by man. They reinforced stereotypes that beautiful women were dumb and that smart women were dumpy, wore glasses and were obnoxious. And if you happened to be a smart, dumpy, glasses wearing girl in the 70s, I would guess that you grew to hate them both with a level of passion you reserved for very few things. I know I did. It’s all well and good to proclaim universal love for geeky women now, but that’s a fairly recent phenomena.

Well, since both of them could go through numerous “adventures” with the same plot and same ending every time, and not figure out what was going on, I wouldn’t want either. I like intellegent women. That show makes Spongebob Squarepants look like an intellectual event.

Dark-haired Linda Cardinelli beats Sarah Michelle Gellar. In the cartoon, I always thought Velma’s turtleneck concealed at least three chins, which I found a turnoff. If that makes me shallow, so be it. Daphne, please.

BJS nailed it. “Betty or Veronica?” is the central question, all the rest is mere knock-off.

I remember my son grasping the idea
of pop culture recursion when I demonstrated that the Banana Splits were a knock-off of the Monkees that were a knock-off of the Beatles.

He later found a knock-off of the Banana Splits to support the theorem.

The Beatles, as everyone knows, were an avatar of Orpheus. It is well known in Hindu theology that a God can manifest in multiple incarnations at once which, by the lemma of convservation of godhood, add up to one God. For instance, there is a Hindy tale of a God incarnating as 3 brothers, one who was 1/2 the God and the other two being 1/4 of the God each.

Yes, some quibble about extra fourthnamely:
(1) Pete Best
(2) Stuart Sutcliffe
(3) Pete Shotton, member of precursor bands (such as the Quarrymen)
(4) Colin Hanton, member of precursor bands (such as the Quarrymen)
(5) Len Garry, member of precursor bands (such as the Quarrymen)
(6) Eric Griffiths, member of precursor bands (such as the Quarrymen),
(7) Rod Davis, member of precursor bands (such as the Quarrymen),
(8) Jimmy Nicol, temporary Beatles drummer, Dutch and Danish legs of the 1964 tour,
(9) Andy White, temporary Beatles drummer,
(10) Tommy Moore, temporary Beatles drummer,
(11) Brian Epstein, band’s manager from 1961 to his death in 1967,
(12) George Martin, producer (who paradoxically in an interview in the 1990s describing Epstein’s involvement in the band’s rise to fame, George Martin declared “He’s the fifth Beatle, if there ever was one”,
(13) Neil Aspinall, close personal friend of the group, and their road manager, promoted to personal assistant, and eventually CEO for Apple Corps,
(14) Mal Evans,
(15) NOT at any time manager Allen Klein, else why would they sue him?
(16) Derek Taylor, press agent and confidant of the Fab Four, later press officer for Apple Corps, then a VIP at Apple,
(17) Tony Sheridan, noting that for a few years Sheridan was the bigger name, with The Beatles as his backing band,
(18) good case for Billy Preston, since apart from Sheridan, pianist Billy Preston was the only artist to receive joint credit on a Beatles single (“Get Back”) and also played organ on “Let It Be” and Rhodes electric piano on “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Get Back”,
(19) nonmusician Wilfred Brambell, with plausible claim to be one of the five stars of a Beatle movie (A Hard Day’s Night), such a clean old man,
(20) Photographer Astrid Kirchherr, girlfriend of Stuart Sutcliffe and acquaintance of Sutcliffe’s then-fellow Beatles (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Best),
(21) by a stretch, Muhammad Ali, formerly known as Cassius Clay, was often referred to as the fifth Beatle, as a result of his similar effect to society and culture through entertainment: “He was a ‘crossover’ artist before the term found its application in youth culture and the music world; he was the ‘Fifth Beatle,’ a deracinated, classless, alien, anti-establishment figure of broad appeal” [Sammons, Jeffrey T. “Beyond the Ring – The Role of Boxing in American Society”. University of Illinois Press. 1988.]

See also 9 “Spurious/joke claims” in wikipedia “Fifth Beatle”, plus 9 “Fictional Fifth Beatles” from Eddie Murphy’s Clarence Walker character, to Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in the episode where Lisa Simpson meets Paul & Linda McCartney (Apu claimed to be the fifth Beatle (though he mispronounces it “Bee-at-el”, rhymes with Seattle, also the same mispronunciation used by the Eastern cult in the film Help!); Paul’s eye-rolling response: “Sure you were, Apu.” And, of course, The Rutles’s “All You Need is Cash” refers to a “fifth Rutle”, “Leppo”, who “disappeared [in Hamburg] after stepping into a small chest with a small German fraulein.”

Sorry, obsessively needed this detail to work off the coffee (which tastes like ass) and make the point that Beatlemania is portrayed by Beatlemaniamania, which is portrayed by… ad infinitum.

I’ve been telling people for a long time, based on observing Venice, Paris, and New York New York in Las Vegas, and re-reading Niven-Pournelle’s Motie museums with remnants of older Motie museums in them, that the logical next theme casino should be Las Vegas Las Vegas. The motto? “What happens in Las Vegas Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas Las Vegas and doesn’t even get out to Las Vegas.”

So, as I was saying, Betty and Veronica. Whom one of the animated Beatles married, I think, and another made a serious pass at, and then Eric Clapton, no, wait a minute…

From “Red Dwarf”: the characters Lister and the Cat are confined to the infirmary, and growing a little stir crazy.

–Cat?
–Yeah?
–Is it just me, or is Wilma Flintstone incredibly sexy?
–Wilma Flintstone?
–Yeah.
— Wilma Flintstone is without a doubt the most desirable woman who has ever lived.
— That’s good. I thought I might be going a bit wacko. What about Betty?
— Betty Rubble?
— Yeah.
— Well, I would go with Betty… but I’d be thinking of Wilma.
— Yeah. Oh, this is nuts. What are we talking about?
— Yeah. She’d never leave Fred and we know it.

mds @ 76: I ran across an old picture of Elisabeth Sladen and Tom Baker just the other day, and was again stunned by just how babealicious she was. She still is, but now it’s in a totally MILFy kind-of- way.

Talking animation – Daphne, cause it takes a real special guy to stick with a redhead but they are worth it. The only real drawback is their thin skin wrinkles early, but even then it is fun to find the freckle line.

Mary Ann beats Ginger but mostly because Ginger (Tina Louis) wasn’t really very attractive. Sorry Tina, but she had that overdone Hollywood “vampy” thing going on that never worked for me or, apparently, anyone else either.

Mary Ann (Dawn Wells?) on the other hand, had the girl-next-door good looks that have aged very well.

In modern days Alyson Hannigan is by far the most attractive beautiful woman around. I didn’t see the “Evil Willow” but I’ll second or third that vote.

Zoe …She went after what she wanted…Kaylee’s character became too chaste after the pilot!

But since someone mentioned Buffy….I am with Jeri and will take Nathan Fillion but from the Buffy days when he got to play a bad bad guy instead of a the Firefly days where he was the conflicted good guy!

And if we’re going to go into the Firefly verse, Zoe, hands down. Quoting Wash here, “it was her legs that attracted me first. And her back. And the part where her legs meet her back. Yeah, that part especially…“

Re: #78 Ed Says:
“Did Vos Post just make that up or did he cut and paste a previous post from his personal blog?”

This blog is NOT about me. But, since you ask…. As assisted by wikipedia, as cited, it was spontaneously composed in a Kerouacian riff in the Scalzi blog form, with no cut & paste from any other blog or email.

Was it Barth’s “Giles Goat Boy” or “Sotweed Factor” that has the Mendelian genetics of Gods, demigods, and mortals mating, with God dominant over Mortal if you’re hybrid?

And, @75 Roger, yes I was under the influence of Caffeine (extra-strength Fresh-ground Trader Joe’s French Roast coffee). Caffeine, runnin’ all ’round my spleen. Since the day of my emergency major surgery 9 Jan 2008, I’ve never had as much as 6 hours sleep in any night, and that fragmented. Coffee is, mixed with chutzpah, keeping me going. That and wanting to get well enough to return to teaching all day. That and having handed off today a 37-page draft paper + appendices for my co-author (the surgeon who saved my life) to redline and do his turn writing.
I’ll see him Friday for 2nd follow-up appointment at his clinic since discharged from the hospital 18 Jan 08 where I ran up a huge honking bill (at 20% copay, no cap) over 9 days. That and a fanatical devotion to the Autopope.